


breathe as though you are drawing your bow

by waterfront



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant?, F/M, Pining, baby's first dance lesson, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 00:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterfront/pseuds/waterfront
Summary: Aloy doesn't know how to dance and Nil, ever the gentleman, offers to show her.





	breathe as though you are drawing your bow

She burst through the crowd at the edge of Daytower and took a deep breath. The smell of the spices, the loud chatter of the crowd, the sheer number of  _ people _ —

Aloy slipped open the wide gate door and managed to shut out some of the static in her head. It was as though someone had thrown a blanket over the world and muffled everything that wasn’t important. She heard the chirp of crickets, the rush of water down below the cliff face, and the rush of wind through the grass. 

She felt a worrisome buzz travel up her ribcage at the thought of being stuck in such a small camp with so many strangers, so many travelers, and so much noise. She knew eventually someone would come looking — to say thanks, to cheer her name — so blessed moments to herself like these were precious. 

Aloy took another deep breath, this one free of anxious fears and full of cool, moon-lit air. At the end of the rampart, someone had lit the traveler’s fire and it called to her like Nora horn. Yet, as she approached, it seemed someone was already there — lying supine in the dark grass as though on chaise of a king. 

Bow and helmet cast to the ground beside him, Nil tore at a blade of grass in his fingers, the hollowness of his collarbone cast dark shadows in the firelight. As though on instinct, she became irritated at the sight of him. She just wanted to be alone,  _ by the goddess _ , and here he was — when she needed silence the most. 

Behind her, the din of the festival echoed into the crevices of the mountain behind Daytower. 

“Well, huntress, are you going to come over here or just stand in the dark, staring at me, all night?” Without looking back at her, he tossed the shredded bits of grass into the fire in front of him. 

Aloy scowled at the back of his neck as she tried not to stomp over to the empty space beside him. 

“How did you know it was me?” She asked as she slid down to the ground, her knees bunched up to her chest. 

At that, he frowned, still not looking at her. “Come now. Do not all great hunters have a keen sense of awareness? I know exactly where you are, whenever you’re around.”

A crack in the fire made her cheeks warm. “A great hunter, huh? Is that what you’re calling yourself these days?”

“What would you prefer to call me?” 

“A murderer with an advantageous bloodlust.” 

“Better than a skinny savage with no social skills.” 

The fire burned red hot against her cheeks. “Why are you out here,  _ Nil? _ Why aren’t you inside, with everyone else?”

He stilled and finally, those storm-grey, metallic-silver eyes fell on her. The heat on her cheeks dropped into the back of her throat. 

“ _ Why aren’t you? _ ”

Aloy bit the inside of her cheek to stop the spread of the heat to her entire face and she looked away. Why did he have to be like this?  _ Always _ . Always pushing. Always going too far. Always saying things that —

“It’s the music.” He was talking to the fire again, the pads of his fingers nimbly twisting another blade of grass. “No offense to your people, but there is too much religion in your music. Too much praise to an indifferent being, if there was one at all. It’s a fine call-to-arms, but it’s just simply not my taste.” 

Rost once said, some people lied as easily as they breathed and she was sure Nil was one of those people. Though she wasn’t sure why he would lie now, when there was nothing to lose.  _ Then would you tell him _ , Rost’s voice asked,  _ answer why you don’t want to be around your own tribe and the Carja Sundom who has embraced you as their own? Would you be so honest as to admit that despite all you’ve done, you still feel as though you are an outcast? _

She knew very little about Nil and his past, Aloy thought vaguely as she watched him pluck more grass from the ground below him, then ease them into the fire. So little in fact, she dared to wonder if there was something in his past that made him reject the great cities of the Sundom and find peace in the wild, open lands. 

“You cannot dance to this music,” he said simply, never needing encouragement to hear the sound of his own voice. “And dancing is nearly as good as killing.”

“That’s not true,” she said, ignoring his casual bloodlust. “I’ve seen hundreds of Nora tribesman dance at the Blessings.” 

Nil shook his head, his dark hair sliding free from where his helmet would usually hold it in place. It brushed easily against the smooth skin, below the dividing line on the side of his head. “Dancing is meant to be shared, little huntress, not in the supplication of some silent goddess.” 

“What are you talking about? Dancing is dancing.” 

His grey eyes seemed to glow in delight as a thought crossed his mind. “Have you never danced with anyone before?”

She really didn’t like the small, knowing smile creeping across his face. Her mouth was suddenly dry. “I don’t dance at all.”

Nil chuckled to himself as he brushed the grass from his hands and stood up. “Well, that explains so much. Stand, huntress, and let me teach you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nil.” She rolled her eyes away from his outstretched hand, something hot and warm simmering in her stomach. “You said it yourself — dancing to this is impossible.” 

“Not if you have the right partner.” He slid his wide palm underneath her hand resting on her knee, pulling her forward. He kept tugging until she was on her feet and Alloy wanted nothing more than to run into the nearest glen and never been seen again. 

“Nil —,”

He pulled her close, his bare chest warm beneath his silken vest. She put a hand between them to prevent her body from falling into him. “Hush, now. This isn’t meant to be torture.”

He lifted their hands still wrapped around each other until they were about shoulder-height. He stepped impossible closer until he had one knee gently between her legs. Aloy found she couldn’t mount a sound of protest even if she wanted to. 

Nil held his other hand aloft, fingers splayed wide as though to show he held no tricks. His eyes were the color of a Stormbird’s wing and he was circling ever closer. 

“Don’t snap my neck over this.” That grin, sharper and heavier than any he had given her before, was growing wider, bolder. “This,” he indicated to his aloft hand, “is meant to go here.”

It came to rest on her hip, gently, as though he knew she was hovering on her instinct to fly or fight. 

They stood like that, pressed together, in the shadow of the Carja outpost under the summer moon. She felt his breathing, smelling of wintermint, tumble down the bridge of her nose. 

“Now what?” She hated to think her voice came out as a whisper. The point where his throat met his collarbone fluttered under her forceful gaze. If he really were a Stormbird, her hesitation to look him in the eye would have meant her death — her corpse a charred mess, still warm from the blast of electric power. 

He tipped her elbow up, up across his chest to rest on his shoulder, at the curve of his shoulder. The pads of her fingers brushed the fine hairs regrowing at the base of his skull and the breath on her nose hitched. 

“Now we dance.” 

As the hand on her hip tipped her closer, Nil stepped forward. She moved with him, against him, and he stepped again. Little steps, nothing more than an inch in the shape of a square, but she was moving and he was carrying her, his fingers resting cooly low in the middle of her back. She heard the  _ crisps _ of their feet as they edged around on the grass.

Beyond them, the drums beat wildly, like a throbbing heart. The crowd roared with ecstasy. 

“Relax,” he murmured into her hair. “Don’t think of this as part of your training, or a challenge to win. Lean in. Breathe as though you are drawing your bow.” 

He paused and put his wide hand flat against her breastbone. Up an inch more and he could have taken her throat in one palm. 

His eyes were as dark as a turbulent river. “Breathe.”

For a single absolutely absurd moment, she thought he was going to  _ kiss her _ — 

— and in that breath that she felt all the way down to her toes, her body loosened, hips and thighs going slack. Her fingers spread against his neck and her lips parted. 

His smile was almost cruel with delight. “Such a good listener.” 

But then his head turned, his feet resumed their shuffle, and he pressed his temple to hers as though by touch alone he could transmit the tune in his head. 

“You must stay in Meridian longer next time,” Nil continued, unhurried and frustratingly unaffected. “It’s a rather shit city but the dance halls are quite extraordinary.” 

There were things she wanted to ask him; questions that began as feelings and vague fantasies that were only now growing clear and concrete. But where to begin? Her eyes on the glowing Daytower, Aloy dropped her chin and rested her lips against his shoulder. The silk there was warm.

“What are our thoughts now?” He asked after a moment. He had slowed their flow from a pattern to a slow turn, their two bodies revolving and swaying under the light of a thousand stars. “Still think dancing is just dancing?” 

Rost had warned her about all sorts of men — liars, cheats, thieves, killers, monsters more machine than man — but somehow he neglected to tell her about men like Nil. Perhaps there wasn’t anyone else quite like this Carja soldier. 

So, she thought about his question, and her answer, and she thought about his gaze on her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and she thought about the calloused hand at her back, and she thought about him, and her — Aloy lifted her head to look him straight in the eye.

“Is that all we’re doing? Dancing?” 

He hummed, as though his every nerve was crackling. “Little girl, that’s all we’ve ever done.” 

Inside Daytower walls, a loud bang echoed into the night and a brilliant tongue of fire lit up the night sky. The crowd cheered as more and more brightly colors exploded against the blackness above, the sound incredible before it all faded out. 

Aloy turned to the noise, watching the explosions rise and fall. 

Something warm brushed the shell of her ear, her skin vibrating sharply with sound so close, and suddenly his hands were gone. 

She knew he would not be there if she turned to look for him, so she continued to stand underneath the great screaming fireballs with a knot rising in her throat so painfully it hurt to breathe. Her hands knotted into fists, she watched the lights even when her vision blurred. 

Eventually the lights faded and no more came. A thrilled shout went up from the outpost and the music started again. Behind her the fire had died out and she was suddenly colder than she had been all night. Willing her hands to stop shaking, Aloy turned to go — to wander, to hunt, to be anywhere from here — when she saw something scarlet in the dark grass. 

A single red feather. 

And in that moment, she realized what he had so pleasantly whispered.

_ Come find me, little dancer.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> first HZD fic because I'm obsessed. But full disclosure, I haven't even finished the game, but not for a lack of trying. So not entirely sure how things shake up after Aloy wins the big battle. This doesn't take place after any specific win, so just have some fun with it. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr @youbecool if you too won't shut the fuck up about this game to anyone you know or love.


End file.
